Blue Jays' win streak ends at six after tight loss to Rays

TAMPA – The Toronto Blue Jays are operating on a few different planes as they close in on a post-season berth, an American League East title and a wildcard-round bye, which means at first glance, some of their decisions might look a little funky.

Take the way they closed out Tuesday night’s 6-5 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, for example, when Seranthony Dominguez recorded two outs in the eighth plus another in the ninth before Jeff Hoffman came in to finish things off. Why not simply let Dominguez keep going if he’s already out there? And why disrupt Hoffman’s usual usage as closer?

"Hoff was coming in at (Brandon) Lowe anyway, even if there were two outs, nobody on – we were trying to just squeeze together the number of pitches,” manager John Schneider explained. “It was kind of risky. If they tied it, (catcher Tyler) Heineman's pitching the 10th. So it wasn't ideal. But we tried to piece it together with those two.”

Unusual under normal circumstances, the usage makes more sense when you consider that the two relievers were pitching for a second straight day and the Blue Jays are “trying to thread the needle with workload and trying to win” simultaneously, said Schneider. Or, as Chris Bassitt put it, “I'd say there have been a lot of moves done that are just what we need in the moment, instead of pushing full steam ahead and trying to go crazy, so to speak.”

That tightrope walk continued Wednesday night in a 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, when Kevin Gausman went six innings and threw 95 pitches after a 100-pitch shutout in his last outing and Yariel Rodriguez, also pitching a second straight day, surrendered the go-ahead run in the seventh inning.

Lefty Ian Seymour held the Blue Jays to a single unearned run over seven innings of work, helped along by Chandler Simpson’s leaping catch at the centre-field wall that reduced an Alejandro Kirk drive to a sacrifice fly, instead of a three-run homer, in the fourth inning.

That tied the game 1-1 and there it stood until the seventh, when Carson Williams ripped a two-out double and Simpson, who also led off the game with a double and scored on a Yandy Diaz single, ripped a base hit to plate the go-ahead run.

Edwin Uceta handled the eighth when the Blue Jays used Joey Loperfido and Nathan Lukes as pinch-hitters but not Daulton Varsho, who earlier this season took the reliever deep, while Pete Fairbanks closed things out in the ninth. “He's all right,” Schneider said of not using Varsho. “I'm just trying to give him one more day, just to have a full day off – that time of year. But he should be good to go (Thursday).”

The end result, combined with Cleveland’s 4-0 victory at Detroit, left the Blue Jays’ magic number for clinching a post-season berth at three and cut their lead atop the AL East to four over the New York Yankees, who beat Minnesota 10-5. Bassitt takes on Shane Baz in Thursday’s series finale at George M. Steinbrenner Field before they head to Kansas City for a three-game series with the Royals, where more machinations will take place.

The rotation for that series isn’t yet set and Trey Yesavage, coming off an electric nine-strikeout, five-inning debut, is “for sure” under consideration to start one of the games, said Schneider. “We definitely want to see Trey again and what the stuff plays a second time out there and go from there. He'll be pitching in KC, just don't know whether it's going to be starting or coming out of the 'pen. And other guys kind of play into that decision, too.”

Key, he added, is balancing “what everyone needs and you're trying to cast forward a little bit without getting too far ahead of yourself, and making sure everyone has the appropriate rest, has the appropriate time to prepare.”

Yesavage’s outing Monday gave the rest of the rotation an extra day of rest for their turns this week and Gausman “will be probably on an extra day going forward,” as well, said Schneider. He had to deal with a 20-minute rain delay out of the gate and another 15 minutes before he took the mound in the bottom of the first, when home-plate umpire Brian O’Nora had a stomach illness and had to be replaced by Mike Estabrook.

“Hopefully he's feeling better, but not ideal, kind of weird," said Gausman, who lamented that he “wasn't necessarily that sharp … kind of battling myself the whole day,” pointing to ​struggles feeling comfort in his delivery.

In spite of that, he still managed to allow just the one run on six hits and two walks with six strikeouts, underlining how well he’s pitched of late. Over his past eight starts, he’s posted a 1.96 ERA in 55 innings, allowing only 34 hits and 10 walks while striking out 50, with outings of seven, eight and nine innings in his three games before Wednesday.

What he’s most pleased with during the current stretch is “getting deep into games,” which leads to his goal of “giving every reliever I can a day off.”

“Every inning I can go, that's one less guy that we kind of abuse,” Gausman continued. “That's what we've done – we've used those guys a lot. So, right now, my focus is trying to get as deep as I can to give those guys a blow for the meaningful games that I hope we play coming up.”

To that end, Gausman sounds intent on being all gas, no brakes with his workload heading into the post-season, saying he hasn’t thought much about adjusting what he does between now and his next start, “with the plan to go deep in the game like I want to.”

“There could be some exciting things that happen before that,” he added, “but my focus is coming in (Thursday) and getting ready for my next start.”

The same goes for the rest of the Blue Jays, all with one eye on the present, and another on October and beyond.